Onze Technologies Pvt. Ltd has come up with a new location-based service, ‘Latlong’ which offers location search as well as driving direction services over the SMS channel. It claims that the service is easier to use, less time consuming and more importantly cheaper than the other competing services available in the market.

The services support a wide range of handsets and are not limited to Smartphones.

"There are a lot of challenges that the LBS industry in India is facing currently and most important of these is availability of accurate GIS (Geographic Information System). The problem lies in the fact that the current GIS data has been built for other requirements and not for LBS” says Sudarshan H S, CEO of Onze Technologies.

The founders of the firm include four former Infosys engineers, Sudarshan HS, Pavaman Athani, Sairam Rajamani and Rahul RS.

The service is available for free and the user only needs to incur the charges for the SMS sent to Onze’s unique number 90088 90088.